See: US spy scandal prompts redraft of EU data bill (euobserver, link). If the parliament were to adopt this position we would see a
"battle royale" between it and the Council (EU governments) and other Commissioners and Directorate-Generals who are susceptible to USA
pressure:http://euobserver.com/justice/120564

"reading people's email before/as they do": GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications at G20 summits: Exclusive: phones were
monitored and fake internet cafes set up to gather information from allies in London in 2009 (Guardian, link)

"One document refers to a tactic which was "used a lot in recent UK conference, eg G20". The tactic, which is identified by an internal
codeword which the Guardian is not revealing, is defined in an internal glossary as "active collection against an email account that acquires mail
messages without removing them from the remote server". A PowerPoint slide explains that this means "reading people's email before/as they
do".[emphasis added]

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch Director, comments: "These revelations come as no surprise to those who have tracked US-UK intelligence-gathering since
the 1946 UKUSA agreement setting up global cooperation between the NSA and GCHQ. Intercepts by GCHQ are routinely forwarded to the Cabinet Office and
then onto Ministries like the Foreign Office and have always given UK Ministers and officials the inside track in EU and international
negotiations. Secondly, this confirms that a technological capacity of "reading people's email before/as they do" can be used not only to spy on
other governments but also on organisations and individuals in civil
society."

sent out for inter-service consultation in December 2011, was amended by deleting Article 42. Article 42 would have been effectively an "anti-FISA
clause" (the USA's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and was deleted, after lobbying, by the full college of Commissioners as this would have
led to major conflicts with the USA because most data servers of internet companies holding data on EU citizens are based in the USA. The Financial
Times quotes a EU official as saying: "White House officials were making the rounds here and especially targeting Commissioners who have close
relationships to the US to get them to remove Article 42" (in the draft proposal).

from the USA and (put online at the time by Statewatch) which led to negative opinions being expressed by a number of Commission DGs.

The US Note says that Article 42 would impede and hinder law enforcement cooperation because "provision should be made to prohibit a controller or
processor to directly dispose personal data to requesting third countries, unless authorised to do so by a supervisory authority [eg: a member state
data protection authority... the draft regulation would effectively undermine international cooperation" - the "international cooperation"
referred to is, of course, a one-way street whereby the USA reserves to itself to right to put under surveillance anyone in the EU or the world.

See below for background. Poses seven questions and opens with: "I have serious concerns about recent media reports that United States
authorities are accessing and processing, on a large scale, the data of European Union citizens using major US online service providers.
Programmes such as PRISM and the laws on the basis of which such programmes are authorised could have grave adverse consequences for the
fundamental rights of EU citizens."

The ACLU are taking a court action against the PRISM surveillance system which is authorised under the Patriot Act Section 215 using a FISA
Order (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). PRISM collects personal information from users of Skype, Facebook, Google, Microsoft etc from
inside and outside the USA (described as "customers" of US-based internet services).

Daniel Ellsberg: "In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA
material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part
of what has amounted to an "executive coup" against the US constitution."